Microsoft have officially announced May 12th, 2010 will be the launch date for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. This date represents the retail launch of the products, with the RTM date scheduled for sometime in April. This means MSDN and TechNet subscribers should have the bits before the end of April.

Office 2010 provides some important updates like the ribbon UI across all apps, new backstage view, threaded email conversations, social connector add-in support and some much needed updated same templates. Ultimately its a very polished Office 2007, using the same .docx, .xlsx file types. New in 2010 is the web apps, although we’re still yet to see editing of word docs online, this should be available at launch.

Here’s a good comparison video showing what’s new in Office 2010 and Office 2007.

SharePoint 2010 on the other hand is a massive upgrade on SharePoint 2007. A completely new UI features the ribbon that users are familiar with from the using Office products. There’s also an extended range of in-built site types. Integration between SharePoint and Office has been improved with a new SharePoint Workspace application added to Office. This allows important SharePoint content to be available whilst offline. If you create any new documents while out on the road, you can easily sync these back when you return to the office.

Creator of techAU, Jason has spent the dozen+ years covering technology in Australia and around the world. Bringing a background in multimedia and passion for technology to the job, Cartwright delivers detailed product reviews, event coverage and industry news on a daily basis.

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